phonons - BLOGS - Blacksciencefictionsociety2024-03-28T21:30:02Zhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/phononsGetting Back Mojo...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/getting-back-mojo2022-03-29T10:00:00.000Z2022-03-29T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10244579465,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10244579465,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="362" alt="10244579465?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:8pt;">Artist's representation of the circular phonons. (Courtesy: Nadja Haji and Peter Baum, University Konstanz)</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Applied Physics, Lasers, Magnetism, Materials Science, Phonons</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>When a magnetic material is bombarded with short pulses of laser light, it loses its magnetism within femtoseconds (10<sup>–15</sup> seconds). The spin, or angular momentum, of the electrons in the material, thus disappears almost instantly. Yet all that angular momentum cannot simply be lost. It must be conserved – somewhere.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Thanks to new ultrafast electron diffraction experiments, researchers at the <a href="https://www.physik.uni-konstanz.de/en/" target="_blank">University of Konstanz in Germany</a> have now found that this “lost” angular momentum is in fact transferred <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2022/03/29/getting-back-mojo/" target="_blank">from the electrons to vibrations</a> of the material’s crystal lattice within a few hundred femtoseconds. The finding could have important implications for magnetic data storage and for developments in spintronics, a technology that exploits electron spins to process information without using much power.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In a ferromagnetic material, magnetism occurs because the magnetic moments of the material’s constituent atoms align parallel to each other. The atoms and their electrons then act as elementary electromagnets, and the magnetic fields are produced mainly by the spin of the electrons.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Because an ultrashort laser pulse can rapidly destroy this alignment, some scientists have proposed using such pulses as an off switch for magnetization, thereby enabling ultra-rapid data processing at frequencies approaching those of light. Understanding this ultrafast demagnetization process is thus crucial for developing such applications as well as for better understanding the foundations of magnetism.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/researchers-find-lost-angular-momentum/" target="_blank">Researchers find ‘lost’ angular momentum</a>, Isabelle Dumé, Physics World</span></span></p></div>Quantum Sound...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/quantum-sound2019-09-02T10:00:00.000Z2019-09-02T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5lSM0a9T5c/XWx5nY5eiuI/AAAAAAAAObw/8uXLLXd_AM8xKmEhX8wp-tlTmMcTkK3zgCLcBGAs/s1600/B10ACC9E-573D-4AC6-8739975926B2A8E3_source.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5lSM0a9T5c/XWx5nY5eiuI/AAAAAAAAObw/8uXLLXd_AM8xKmEhX8wp-tlTmMcTkK3zgCLcBGAs/s400/B10ACC9E-573D-4AC6-8739975926B2A8E3_source.jpg" width="400" height="300" border="0" alt="B10ACC9E-573D-4AC6-8739975926B2A8E3_source.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Credit: Getty Images</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Modern Physics, Phonons, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Researchers have gained control of the elusive “particle” of sound, the phonon. Although phonons—the smallest units of the vibrational energy that makes up sound waves—are not matter, they can be considered particles the way photons are particles of light. Photons commonly store information in prototype quantum computers, which aim to harness quantum effects to achieve unprecedented processing power. Using sound instead may have advantages, although it would require manipulating phonons on very fine scales.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Until recently, scientists lacked this ability; <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2019/09/quantum-sound.html" target="_blank">just detecting</a> an individual phonon destroyed it. Early methods involved converting phonons to electricity in quantum circuits called superconducting qubits. These circuits accept energy in specific amounts; if a phonon’s energy matches, the circuit can absorb it—destroying the phonon but giving an energy reading of its presence.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In a new study, scientists at JILA (a collaboration between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder) tuned the energy units of their superconducting qubit so phonons would not be destroyed. Instead the phonons sped up the current in the circuit, thanks to a special material that created an electric field in response to vibrations. Experimenters could then detect how much change in current each phonon caused.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">“There’s been a lot of recent and impressive successes using superconducting qubits to control the quantum states of light. And we were curious—what can you do with sound that you can’t with light?” says Lucas Sletten of U.C. Boulder, lead author of the study published in June in Physical Review X. One difference is speed: sound travels much slower than light. Sletten and his colleagues took advantage of this to coordinate circuit-phonon interactions that sped up the current. They trapped phonons of particular wavelengths (called modes) between two acoustic “mirrors,” which reflect sound, and the relatively long time sound takes to make a round trip allowed the precise coordination. The mirrors were a hair’s width apart—similar control of light would require mirrors separated by about 12 meters.</span></em></div><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trapping-the-tiniest-sound/" target="_blank">Trapping the Tiniest Sound</a>, Leila Sloman, Scientific American</span></p></div>